As alot of other places this time of year, it's starting to get cold here. Unfortunately for me, my heater just quit getting hot, as in blowing nothing but cold air.

I have the ECC(Electronic Climate Control) which started the blinking light telling me that something was wrong. So I dig out my service manual and follow all the steps to where I have narrowed it down to just the "Temperature Door Motor". :mad For those of you who know where this is located, you are probably gasping about right now.

Its the little Triangular shaped box on the BACK HALF of the frickin heater core case. So needless to say, since I had to take the heater core out just to get to it, I decided to replace the heater core while I was in there.

I took the old heater door motor apart and this is what I found:

The gear that turns the shaft to the heater door was cracked. :eek:







[Modified by vette92_1, 5:39 PM 1/12/2004]

 

Don't you love those 10 cent failures that probably would have cost $300 in labor to fix.

As I read your post I was wondering if you were going to change the heater while you were in there !

 

Yep, actually the part was around 50.00 but labor was 450.00 :eek:

Let me rephrase that: Labor would have been 450.00, if I would have had it done at the shop, but I tackled it myself. :D


[Modified by vette92_1, 5:47 PM 1/12/2004]

 

Consider yourself lucky. As I am very inexpierenced in these cars, i needed to replace my heater core. Somehow I did something to the little heater door while i was mucking around in there. I just haven't gotten around to digging back in there to get to it. I may just pay for someone else to do it.. It was such a pain to get there in the first place. As for now, i am driving my truck a lot or wearing a jacket. Luckily its been warm here in Dallas. :cry :cry

 

Whats your door doing? Can you hear your motor clicking or anything?

 

Okay, here's what happened. While i was in there changing out the :mad heater core :mad , I read somewhere that you should make sure the heater door opens properly. So i pushed on it a tad, it didnt open, then i honestly pushed just a tad harder and it literally "popped" open. I think i heard a little snap. Now the door seemed to move back and forth without any trouble. Once I got everything back together and turned on, i could hear a sound, like a motor gyrating back and forth. But I got an error light and the gyrating back and forth sound didnt stop. The error code was for the door. It won't blow hot. What i THINK :confused: happened was that when i pushed on it :crazy: i must have broke it or knocked it off track somehow. The book says that the motor moves the door back and forth to self calibrate and remember its position. I think that since mine is off track it can't find any position and keeps trying. Unless I blow cold air then it is happy. I have no idea how I'm gonna fix it other than to take it out. But that motor has to be the one part on the whole car harder to get to than the heater core. Anychance that can be gotten to from the blower motor on the engine side? It almost looks do-able. :confused:

 

I think you cracked the same gear in the motor that I posted the pic of.

 

Nope, you could get to the door if you removed all of your AC stuff out of its housing but the door motor is mounted with 2 screws on top of the inside housing. IAPITA!!

Yours sounds just like what mine was doing only mine just cracked on its own. But if you look at that photo I posted, the gear that is cracked is what turns the shaft that turns your door open and closed, with that gear cracked the motor runs but it just slips around that shaft.


[Modified by vette92_1, 10:53 PM 1/12/2004]